HCPlive (5/31, Walter) reports, “Patients with both systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are more likely to also have an issue with several substances including alcohol, tobacco, opioids, and cannabis,” investigators concluded in a study that “identified 743 patients with SLE and 37,623 patients with MDD.” In this particular “group, there were 317 patients with SLE that had comorbid MDD.” The findings were presented during the 2023 American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— “Substance Use Disorder Rates Higher in Patients With Comorbid SLE, Major Depressive Disorder “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, May 31, 2023

MedPage Today (5/31, Short) reports, “People who quit smoking for at least 15 weeks may see improvements in their mental health,” investigators concluded in the findings of an 8,411-patient, “secondary analysis of the EAGLES trial.” Research revealed that “in adults with and without a psychiatric history, those who quit smoking for that duration saw reductions in Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale…scores at six months compared with active smokers.” The findings were published online May 31 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (5/30, Herpen) reports, “Adults with binge-eating disorder who were given acute naltrexone/bupropion performed better with similar maintenance treatment compared with placebo,” investigators concluded in a 66-adult study that in which participants were “randomized 1:1 to receive either naltrexone/bupropion (n = 32) or placebo (n = 34) for 16 weeks.” The findings were presented at the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology annual meeting.

Related Links:

— “Naltrexone/bupropion maintenance therapy for binge-eating disorder superior to placebo “Robert Herpen, Healio, May 30, 2023

The New York Times (5/26, A1, Weiland) reported, “Hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage in recent weeks as part of a sprawling unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that prohibited states from removing people from the program.” Early data indicate “many people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggests that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it.” In addition, “many of those who have been dropped have been children.”

Related Links:

— “Hundreds of Thousands Have Lost Medicaid Coverage Since Pandemic Protections Expired “Noah Weiland, The New York Times, May 26, 2023

According to the New York Times (5/26, Caron), research “suggests that, for some patients, the anesthetic ketamine is a promising alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, currently one of the quickest and most effective therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat depression.” In the “largest head-to-head comparison of the two treatments,” investigators “found that ketamine, when administered intravenously, was at least as effective as ECT in patients with treatment-resistant depression who do not have psychosis.” The findings were published online May 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Psychiatric News (5/26) reported, “The participants receiving ECT reported greater problems with memory at the end of treatment compared with those who received ketamine, though by the one-month follow-up, there was little difference between the two groups,” the study revealed. Additionally, “ECT participants reported more musculoskeletal adverse effects, whereas ketamine participants reported more dissociation symptoms.”

HCPlive (5/27, Kunzmann) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— “Ketamine Shows Promise for Hard-to-Treat Depression in New Study “Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 26, 2023